Experimental quantum device aims to reveal every possible future at once

[FatherJack1980]

Australian and Singaporean researchers have created a quantum device that aims to see all possible futures and develop super-powered AI.

Publishing its findings to Nature Communications, the international research team said that it has created an experimental quantum device that can generate all possible futures in a simultaneous quantum superposition.

“When we think about the future, we are confronted by a vast array of possibilities,” said assistant professor Mile Gu of NTU Singapore who led the development of the quantum algorithm that underpins the prototype.

“These possibilities grow exponentially as we go deeper into the future. For instance, even if we have only two possibilities to choose from each minute, in less than half an hour there are 14m possible futures. In less than a day, the number exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.”

What the team realised during development was that a quantum computer could examine all of these futures by placing them in a quantum superposition, a concept similar to Schrödinger’s famous cat, which is simultaneously alive and dead.

This was achieved with a specially created photonic quantum information processor where potential future outcomes of a decision are represented by the locations of photons. The team then demonstrated that the state of the quantum device was a superposition of multiple potential futures, weighted by their probability of occurrence.

The machine has already demonstrated one application: measuring how much our bias towards a specific choice in the present impacts the future.

Lead author of the study, Farzad Ghafari of Griffith University, explained: “By interfering these superpositions with each other, we can completely avoid looking at each possible future individually. In fact, many current artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms learn by seeing how small changes in their behaviour can lead to different future outcomes, so our techniques may enable quantum-enhanced AIs to learn the effect of their actions much more efficiently.”

Right now, the device can only simulate 16 futures at most, but the research team said there’s nothing to stop it being scalable infinitely.

Prof Geoff Pryde of the team said “this is what makes the field so exciting”.

“It is very much reminiscent of classical computers in the 1960s,” he added. “Just as few could imagine the many uses of classical computers in the 1960s, we are still very much in the dark about what quantum computers can do.”

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/experimental-quantum-device-every-possible-future

 

[MasterControlOp]

We're in the endgame now.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

This is a lot of effort to spend on zeno’s paradox.

 

[yaxomoxay]

I have issues taking care of the past and the present, let alone multiple futures...

 

[smallcoffee]

I hate articles like this. Hand-wavy science and, naturally, a mention of the stupid cat thought experiment.

 

[Irishman]

I hate articles like this. Hand-wavy science and, naturally, a mention of the stupid cat thought experiment.

What exactly do you mean by "hand-wavy science "?

 

[smallcoffee]

What exactly do you mean by "hand-wavy science "?

“Aims to see all possible futures” - this doesn’t mean anything and attaching quantum computing and stupid cat experiment doesn’t either.

#1 rule of quantum industry is the more references to double slit experiment or cat, the more skeptical you should be.

 

[LizKat]

I have issues taking care of the past and the present, let alone multiple futures...

Hah, on several memorable occasions when I had failed to prepare properly for at least one scheduled event in my future, I realized on the way to work in the train that all my many futures like the one immediately in front of me that day were going to be about failed efforts to make 2 and 2 not add up to 4, for so long as I persisted in thinking I could wing my way through anything.

I kinda lost interest in seeing any multiple-future alternatives to that after proving out my epiphanic theory a few more times. But I admit I took a shortcut after that by just assuming 2 and 2 add up to 4. I have never liked that number 4 either, but it's a sturdy little critter. The way to avoid getting in its path was pretty predictable: don't leave prep for the day ahead to the last minute.

 

[pratikindia]

Good joke. Impossible for science.